Flamingo Fishing Report and Photo Essay

Flamingo Fishing Report and Photo Essay

Monday morning Tom Mitzlaff came down and loaded his stuff into my van, then hitched his trailer to it. We drove off, heading to Flamingo.

Tom had never been there.

We started late, had a couple of stops, so got there late. We got a campsite and set up the tent. As we checked out the greater Flamingo metro area I was disappointed that no tarpon were rolling anywhere.

Early the next morning we launched our boats. Tom was in a Solo Skiff, I in an Old Town canoe.

Tom preps the Solo Skiff for launching.

And we’re off!

Tom towed me to the fishing area, which worked very well and saved lots of time.

Tom used the Solo Skiff to tow the canoe.

We hadn’t been there long when I spotted a snook. It ate the fly, then cut me right off. We then expected great things.

Looking for snook alone a lee shoreline. There were too few of these.

They did not materialize. The water was a touch too deep, the sky a bit too cloudy, the wind a bit too strong. We saw quite a few fish but did not have that many good shots. Fish that have been run over don’t bite real well. It was hard to see them before we were on top of them, hard to control the boats when we did.

I had a great shot at a pair of redfish. They looked at the gurgler closely, said no. Gurglers and redfish, not so good. I wished I had a small slider tied on. But I wanted the gurgler for the snook.

We got to the second spot. A 15-knot wind was blowing right into it, all whitecaps. We went back to spot number one.

I tried using the spin rod with the CAL Shad. After spooking two fish in spite of good presentations I went back to the fly.

I spotted an unsuspecting fish and dropped the fly in front of it. BAM! A nice snook, five pounds or so.

A nice snook of about five pounds.

The gurgler is great for snook, not so hot for redfish.

I got two more little ones blindcasting the CAL shad around some dead timber.

During the day we must have blown out at least two dozen snook. If we had just slightly better conditions I think it could have been great. The line between success and failure when fly fishing can be so thin…

Wednesday morning we awoke to discover someone had relieved Tom of his pushpole during the night. That was so considerate of them.

Without the pole we couldn’t fish, so we visited Mahogany Hammock and the Anhinga Trail. Except for losing the pole it was all good.

A tricolor heron along the Anhinga Trail.

A resurrection fern along Mahogany Hammock.

This anhinga looks ready for mating season.

What would a trip to the everglades be without a little alligator action?

We stopped in Miami to visit Bob Stearns on the way home. He gave us some fishing stuff. Thank you so much, Bob!

The radiator on my van blew up at some point down there. At least it got us home! Thursday I bought a new one. Friday I had fun installing it. Saturday had a forecast high of 55 and was very windy. I wanted to fish but not in those conditions.

And that is this week’s Flamingo fishing report. Again, I hope to get out more this week!

Life is great and I love my work!

Life is short. Go Fishing!

John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com

All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2014. All rights are reserved.